Exalt: Our first public playtest

Six feet of grazing table, a roaring fire, and more than twenty people huddled over our five prototype copies of Exalt. Our first playtest event was kicking off in all the right ways.

We held it at Gantley's Tavern in Queenstown as an open invitation to the local gaming community. We'd been burning the candle at both ends to get the components cut, glued and assembled in time, but the useful and positive feedback made it all worthwhile.

The focus of the playtest was on function over form, as we're still finalising the art and design assets. We knew there would be balance issues, and sure enough it didn't take long to reach consensus about which hero needed tweaking. We tracked wins across all games and Dendr emerged as a clear problem. Their defensive power was too high and the number of regenerative saplings made it nearly impossible to clear the board. Beyond the nerf to Dendr (sorry), we made dozens of smaller adjustments that should bring the game into a more competitive state.

What really heartened us was the mix of players who showed up. The post-event survey revealed we'd drawn veterans and newcomers alike, some who'd never played an abstract strategy game like Exalt before. That makes the feedback even more valuable, because one of our core design principles is to create games that are accessible to many but still reward mastery.

The surreal moment for us was walking around and hearing people laugh at outrageous strategies or make references to characters they'd only met that day. We're incredibly grateful to everyone for their generous spirit and openness.

We've already begun work on our next game while we finalise Exalt, so it won't be long before we hold another playtest. Sign up to our newsletter if you haven't already! We'll let you know when the next one is happening.